3D TOUR of PARIS

To see where we are hanging out you can visit this 3D site HERE
Peter arrives at CDG airport on Aug.18 AM early, and Max arrives some hours later. We will meet up at the Hotel Home Latin in Paris Latin Quarter probably both stunned with jetlag. Max is fluent in Latin so we should be okay.
Live WebCam HERE .......Paris map HERE


Two nights are planned in Paris and then we get our car at the Gare de Lyon and boogie off towards Tours and Val de la Loire. We will wander through the region and beyond.

Loire Video HERE ..........Loire Map HERE

PARIS First Day

August 18 2008
Okay, Max and Peter are both conscious after red-eye flights to Paris. After some major napping we set off to tour the Cite and circle Notre Dame. Then the Palace and dungeon of Marie-Antoinette (exterior). Nice lunch back in Quartier Latin in the sun. Showers now.

LEAVING PARIS Wednesday

Our plan to see the trumpet concert went awry when we dragged out dinner last night. An amble in the showery evening pretty much ended the day for Peter but Max stuck it out in the Latin Quarter, hitting a bar but not hanging around long. The Beijing Olympics on TV wrapped things up early.
We are both feeling jet lag. Peter awoke at 3 AM and wandered around the neighborhood for an hour. Pretty much deserted except for other obvious JetLagees and parking-meter maids doing a roaring business.
Max is handling his jetlag by sleeping all night and all afternoon but in the mornings he just tosses and turns.
So far we have not met any French, except restaurant shills who pretend they are from Montreal and wave us in for dinner.
This is Wednesday AM so we will wrestle our luggage over to Gare de Lyon to pick up the rental car. The plan is to see Chartres and then head on south - probably not to Tours, but some place in the vicinity. The weather seems to be threatening a Scotch mist, but not quite wetting the road. Should make the drive out of Paris easier, although it seems the French have abandoned the city to the tourists. The traffic is minimal and the crowds are thin. Only the lineup to enter Notre Dame has been a problem. We skipped it for this week.

PARIS to CHARTRES to AMBOISE

Wed Thurs Friday
We picked up our rental car on Wed AM at the Gare de Lyon and with some magnificent navigation from Max found our way to Chartres. Excellent roads and little traffic. Stick shift. Max is dying to try a manual transmission so I will find an empty road somewhere and watch him grind away.
At Chartres the sky was overcast so the cathedral was an upsidedown cave. It is gloomy stone anyway and this made is worse. Great windows and a little organ music really helped. Lunch on the Place and then onward to Amboise.
Cathedral HERE 
Amboise
We lucked into the top choice guest house in the Rick Steves guide. We are comfortable in our own 2-bedroom house ! Lots of atmosphere - Max will do a photo-journal number with the photos of this place - La Grange. Our building is a former barn. Better than the dog kennel of my earlier trip.
Wednesday night we luckily blundered into the Sound & Light show at Amboise castle. Cast of 450. Runs 10 PM to midnight. Terrific as usual.
On Thursday Max hit the Amboise castle tour. View HERE

CHATEAU MASTER LIST click

Then we drove to Chenonceau. Max scores this at 100 on a scale of 0-to-10. Sunny and bright. Video HERE On the return we thrashed around and found Fougeres castle - an early rugged castle. With especially interesting toilet procedures.
With Max navigating like a whizz, we went to Azay-le-Rideau chateau for the night light show. Very artistic. Moaning Enya-style music. No presentation. Just walking around the very dim grounds. I hated it. Max thinks it is great and cannot understand my irritation.


Amboise Chateau, near Tours

Azay-le-Rideau Chateau

Friday
Max is still visiting Leornardo's House - Clos de Luce - and must be entranced since it is now 3 hours. Video HERE

This Internet cafe is a life-saver for hotel booking and planning. English keyboard thank gawd. Each country uses a different layout so it is like having dyslexia as the keys move around ! Our brilliant plan for this evening was to hit the Blois Chateau S&L but apparently it is another gloomy artsy effort. So I have to trick Max out of this somehow.
Max is taking some photos and seems to be enjoying himself. With a stick-shift car in the dark on poor roads, we make a great rally team as long as Max navigates. Totally impossible for one guy alone !
Saturday we move to Chinon for 3 nights to see the castle of Jeanne d'Arc and the Abbey of Fontevraud.
The adventure continues.

CHINON & SAUMUR

Peter stealing grapes at Saumur

Here it is Monday afternoon.
We are in Chinon on the Loire after 2 nights here. From Amboise we drove to this large fortress with associations of Joan of Arc and arrived for a lively food market and Breton festival. The food was Breton but the band played a straight 3-hour set of disco. Not a break. Disco Will Return.

We have seen the huge Chinon fort, Abbey of Fontevraud, Chateau de Saumur, Langeais, Montsoreau and assorted large churches. Both Max and I are planning to buy a chateau to open a Franco-training center with a grant from the Feds. Please sell our stuff and send the money.

The weather continues to be perfect for travel but we have had showers. Downright cold one night - meanwhile , it is roasting in eastern Europe. Like the Canadian weather pattern I guess.
Saumur is a spectacular castle and our favorite to date. Max is quite taken with France and is planning to write a novel on a grant. I suggested he should live in a garret to suffer sufficiently. But he has a taste for a country house with gothic towers and a staff of servants.
One more night in Chinon and then we start north toward Paris.

FONTAINEBLEAU PALACE DAY 1

We finished up the Loire Valley today and on our way back toward Paris we hit the chateau of Blois. Max did the royal apartments and got the grisly details on the king chopping up the Duc de Guise. And the Cardinal. Max is interested in the history and no wonder. When you learn it this way it is really fun. In Blois Peter just visited the cathedral of saint somebody. There is always a saint or pieces of one in a reliquary. Messy business this religion. Just ask the Duc de Guise.
Blois Light Show HERE
We had figured on touring the old center of Orleans but the British bombers of WW2 seem to have modernized most of this large city so we escaped the terrible traffic with our lives and called it quits. They drive like Montrealers. The French have gone crazy for round-abouts in intersections. We must average one per mile and I hate them. The driving arrangements suit Peter just fine since Max has a great sense of direction and reads a map like a pro. This leaves Peter free to avoid pedestrians and yell at other drivers. We have driven about 700 miles so far. Seems like more.

Over a lot of open country - wheat, potatoes and sunflowers - to Fontainbleau Palace. We are here for 2 nights. Tomorrow the palace tour and the enormous park. Lots of street life and cafes so it will be an easy day if the fine weather continues.
Max will buy his Paris museum pass tomorrow and then blitz Fontainbleau and all the Paris sites over 4 days. Our hotel is the Etap chain and closely resembles a cheap dorm room. Great for econo travel and we wanted Max to see the options for future visits. (This assumes I can get him onto the plane home.)
Peter plans on the palace tour and then on to Paris on the 28th. There is a full set of concerts in Sainte Chapel and Notre Dame.
This entry comes from the cybercafe in Fontainbleau old center about 40 miles outside Paris.


Napoleon's Throne

FONTAINEBLEAU PALACE

Wednesday evening

Max has been causing scandals here on the street by walking around with lime green shoelaces. Everybody stares. They are afraid that they may be missing the latest fashion trend.
Today we did the palace and saw Napoleons bedroom. Max is amazed at the decoration of the state rooms. He was boggled for a couple of hours so I fear for his stability when he sees Versailles. Lovely weather and off tomorrow for Paris to get rid of the car. We will blitz the highlights and then on to Vienna for Peter. Max will have to be dragged to the airport in a sack. He loves it.
Several people predicted that he would rebel about day 2 and demand to see Euro-Disney, but he is really into this.

FONTAINEBLEAU TO PARIS

Max Van Gogh (with 2 ears) admiring sunflowers

Off to an early start and we reached Paris by 10:30. The last time I returned a car to the Gare de Lyon transportation hub took me 90 minutes of orbiting the complex just to find the Hertz entry. Today my human GPS found it in 2 orbits. A possible world record! No marks on the car or us either. Max has an amazing sense of direction- a great benefit. There are construction detours and 800 years of city planning making the streets a rat maze. The motorcycles swooping between the cars add another surge of adrenalin.

Back at Hotel Home Latin here and Max has boogied over to the Louvre. 18 miles of display walls should keep him busy for a period. Tonight we plan on a concert at the Sainte Chapel. On Sunday afternoon we get an organ concert at Notre Dame.

Our weather has been perfect for travel. Today is mild and overcast so it is comfortable walking the boulevards.

Finally I had a chance to enter some photos.

PARIS FIRST NIGHT

Arc de Triomphe

Invalides Church with Napoleon Tomb

Today was the first real day in Paris. After a 2-hour trip through the Louvre Max arrived back at the hotel in time to spoil Peters nap. (I still cannot find the apostrophe on the French keyboard!)
So I sent his butt back out on the street with orders to visit Napoleons tomb and the Eiffel Tower. Max walked most of it. Then he crossed the river and walked all the way back down the Champs Elysee to the hotel. He returned to Notre Dame for a historical Sound & Light presentation. Too slow for his taste. Mainly monks moaning.
This evening, Peter went to a stunning concert at Eglise Madeleine, the copy of the Parthenon Athena temple. Soloists of the Paris Orchestra and the Versailles trumpets. Handel's Water Music, Four Seasons and more. Audience of 200 and third row seat. Wow! -as we say in classical circles.
Tomorrow I had intended to send poor Max to Versailles, but he is moaning about swollen calves. In fact he is incoherent after the workout of today. Some people pump iron but Max pumped pavement today.
I guess he will just see the dungeon cell of Marie Antoinette on Friday and a concert in the Sainte Chapel. Perhaps all those prayers and candles will help.

Weather remains overcast and mild.

BUSY in PARIS THEN CALAMITY

Versailles fountainsSo Max did recover enough on Friday to make a day of it. He went to Pere Lachaise Cemetary to see the graves of the stars. Jim Morrison had a bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon on the grave. He followed up with a trip to Galleries LaFayette dept. store. Somebody told him that Paris is for shopping and now his suitcase will not close.
His third stop was a tour of the catacombs and some skull photos - no souveniers I noted. And to close Max off for the night, he hit a concert at the Sainte Chapel.

Peter took it easier with a tour of the dungeons of the Conciererie and the second concert at S. Chapel. A very mellow walk along the quay wrapped it up.
Then calamity struck.
Senterre warned by email that Max was trapped forever in Europe since Zoom Airlines has folded. Dead. A quick check of the Net found an AirTransat flight out of London on Sept.2 so Max will bus-ferry-bus it to Gatwick and be only one day late for Carleton.

Today is Saturday and a warmish day under sun. Max went to Versailles while Peter puddled here. Max has picked up several interior decorating ideas from Louis 14th.

We plan on a night at Montmartre later.

Sainte Chapel AD1254

SUNDAY in PARIS

Yesterday Max went to Versailles to pick up a few garden design tips. He thinks the place is a little busy. Being the weekend, the fountains were operating so it was a good show in the sunshine, if somewhat warm. He walks fast and seems to have done the comprehensive tour. The photos are disappointing however.


We followed up this expedition with a night crawl through Montmartre-Pigalle, the sleazy part of Paris. It is about 10 times bigger than during my visit in 1972. Now there are several blocks of sex shops and grungy bars. Almost entirely tour buses with geezers about my age tut-tuttung their way along. Nothing spectacular or odd though. Also no drunks or addicts on the street as in Vancouver's tenderloin district. Max prefers the Latin Left Bank demographics better. Snob!
Today Max knocked off the last major item, the Conciergerie cell of Marie-Antoinette.
Peter went to St Sulpice church for a short organ program on the famous instrument. LINK
We both went to Notre Dame in the afternoon for the bigger organ program. LINK
ND is usually disappointing and it was again the case today. Obscure selections and the acoustics are awful. The sound turns to mud due to the long reverb time. The organist was a major performer from Nice cathedral and tried to beat the reverb delay by finishing off with a modern piece that was thin, slow and simple, but it was too modern so we left early. No good music was written after 1847 !
That leaves Monday for wrapping up and shipping Max off to London by English Channel ferry-bus. He will likely do the Luxembourg Palace gardens and the Pantheon crypts in the AM before the evening bus departure time. Peter flies out to Vienna early on Tuesday morning.

MAX HEADS HOME

Monday evening 9:00 pm
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree ?
Max started the looooonnnng trek home this evening. Bus-ferry-bus to London Victoria. Then Air Transat to Toronto. Then a flight to Ottawa.

Today to finish off the city we dropped into Eglise Saint Germain. Across the square is the cafe Aux Deux Magots so Max has the photo to prove that he is in the footsteps of Hemingway.
A sizable nap set him up for the dragged out return to Ottawa.
Max is the best travelling companion that I can imagine. Interested in the historical items and the sociology of the country. (Okay, the Babes did not escape his attention either.) He has enough education that he sees what is around him - buildings, social groups, landscape and he was really into chateaux as well. He has a sense of the historical timeline and enjoyed seeing the major art galleries as well. Not a minute was wasted on him. He is good-natured and of even temperament. In all respects like his uncle!
His navigation skills are eerie and got us through thousands of traffic roundabouts. Max says there were merely hundreds.
From here onwards I do not have a car and without my human GPS I am glad to be rid of the wheels.

At 9 am Peter flies on to Vienna for 4 nights. Hoping for some concerts.

PETER in VIENNA

Tuesday Sept. 2 afternoon
Last night Max departed for London and then onwards to Toronto. This AM Peter caught a flight to Vienna from Paris. Light drizzle in Paris and quite warm here in Vienna as has been the pattern all summer in Europe.
After working through the Vienna Metro to the hotel I went to city center and on the first church stumbled into an organ concert. Luck beats brains any day. LINK 
A mellow beer and goulasch on the Graben and I will mosey back to the hotel early. But now I have a chocolate craving because of the Mozart chocolate displays everywhere. Tomorrow will be a palace tour day.

VIENNA DAY 2

Charlemagne's crown

Wednesday
Max is back in Ottawa

Whew ! What a day !
This was going to be a paced day but . . .
This morning I went to the Kunsthistorischesmuseum -Art Gallery. And did the Roman and Egyptian items. The Cellini salt cellar was out for restoration after its theft. VIDEO
On leaving I found the King Tut exhibit across the street. Some new items and no lineup. It is headed for Atlanta next month. When Tut's tomb was opened it had 5500 items. The travelling exhibit has just 55 items, but these tours are such a successful fund-raiser that there are multiple exhibits going on at different cities. The big gold mask is not here in Vienna. Instead there is a similar but lesser mask of another pharoah.
Next came the Imperial Apartments Tour in the palace.
The survivors dragged themselves to the organ concert in Sankt Peter Kirche.
And it is not yet 5 pm !
Off to the City Hall Park to cool off and have dinner.

Peter

CONFUSED in VIENNA AUSTRIA

Thursday
Okay, enough 0f this already. Like I have been here in Austria for 3 full days and looked everywhere. Not one damned kangaroo or koala !
And furthermore the brochure promised there are gondolas and canals here in Vienna, and nothing ! Or maybe I have this confused with the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas. Never mind.
Today I started with the Schönbrunn Palace (note the clever use of the ö). Then off to the Imperial Apartments in the Hofburg Palace. Finishing up at the Treasury, I saw the crown of Charlemagne again. Coronation robes back for 1000 years as well.
After this I had my third organ concert.
Dinner in the open at the Rathaus Park with a couple who produce operas in a castle near the Hungarian border.

The kangaroo sign came about because American tourists kept asking for them.
Packing for the next move to Salzburg on Friday.

SALZBURG

Friday afternoon

Had a great ride up to Salzburg on the train in warm sunshine. Shared a compartment with a Chinese guy from Hong Kong and Richmond, BC. We compared notes on cameras and exotic travel. He wins that one - Bhutan.
My gästehaus is lovely and I have 4 nights here before the trip to Munich. Gotta get the schedule for concerts and see if there is something happening tonight.

Saturday

On my first afternnon in Salzburg I had 2 concerts - both in dungeons.

First was a guitar-zither duo. The first selection was written by Vicente Adan and was performed on guitar, zither and 2 purse zippers. The 2 old bitches behind my seat used this selection to reorganize their purses. I moved and the rest was great.

Following at 7 pm was Mozart piano highlights in the cellar of St Peter´s church. The encore was a killer Rachmaninoff selection. It clearly requires 25 fingers minimum but the girl did it.

Mellow evening for a wine below the castle and off to my hotel now.

Video One HERE Video 2 HERE Video 3 HERE

CASTLE & MIRABELL

Saturday
The TV weather report keeps telling me that it is rainy - nothing but sunshine. So today I bravely trooped up to the fortress for the second time in 36 years. This was followed by a power nap in the afternoon heat.
This evening I went to the cool cellar of the Michael Hayden Museum for a concert of flute quartets. Very well received.
After a quick dinner in front of Mozart's house, I was off to the Mirabell Palace orangerie for a piano recital. The big event this evening was the Mozart Requiem performed in the cathedral, so there were just 6 of us in the Mirabell audience. Six ! Japanese girl playing Mozart and Chopin.  Mirabell VIDEO
Returning to the hotel, I walked through the lighted fountain area with the lighted castle in the distance. Elegant.This town is a Germanic Apache Wells - everyone is in bed by 8 pm ! Remarkable after Vienna which roared all night.

DREARY SUNDAY

Sunday
Well, I just had to open my big mouth yesterday and mention weather. Today began overcast and then the steady drizzle began. I rode a couple of city buses to the suburbs and back while waiting for tonight's concert. A nap figured into the day.
The evening concert was planned for the Rezidenz Schloss open courtyard, so it was washed out. I sulked over a dinner of gulasch and apfel strudel mit rot wein. Can't win them all I guess. Supposedly this is a 1-day weather problem.

HALSTATT

The day did not dawn bright and sunny, but it started dry. And from there it improved so I took the train to Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage site. First iron age settlement in Europe. It was as spectacular as the photo. It looks like a Disney version of an Austrian village. Absolutely exquisite. On the train I met a couple of guys from Japan and we talked about future travel plans.

At the moment I am waiting for the laundromat to finish. Damn, those instructions in German are hard to decypher- DRUCKEN oder ZIEHEN. What the hell kind of language is that !!?? Especially hard when the appliances are more advanced than ours. The computer operating the laundry also offers to turn on the Internet computers in the corner. That is too much so I am working from a human-operated CyberCafe down the block.

Tomorrow AM onto the train and off to Munich for 3 nights. Leaving for home on Sept 12.

MUNICH DAY 1

Tuesday
A nice train ride up from Salzburg and a lot of time left over so I went to the Deutches Museum. It is a techie dream full of mechanical items - airplanes through alarm clocks. All opened up for inspection.
Lovely weather for walking through the central mall, the Graben. After seeing the French drinking their teeny little beers from their tiny glasses, it is startling to see Bavarian matrons swilling from liter mugs. But I guess that is why they are so good at drinking and driving.
I am too early for the OctoberFest but will try to practice for it with more beer . .. that is to say, 2 1/2 beers a day.

MUNICH DAY 2

Wednesday

Another good weather day for sightseeing. So off to the city palace, the Residenz. Starting with the Treasury was productive. The collection of crown jewels in Bavaria is intact since they have never had a revolution. Some goodies date back to year 800 !

In England the Cromwell years took care of the old stuff when he melted down the gold and sold off Charles I's paintings, etc.. Here in Munich there are 2 crowns belonging to English queens of the 1300s. The British crown jewels nowadays are copies and recent constuctions.

Then I toured the main palace rooms - NOT all original because of the unpleasantness of 1939-1945. Air raids remodelled most of Munich.

The big finale was to be the Frauenkirche concert but the published start time was off by one hour. It sounded like a good one through the locked cathedral door, however.

Tomorrow I will tackle the main art gallery.

MUNICH Day 3

Thursday afternoon
My last day in Europe for this year. Perfect weather although the BBC weather channel tells me that it is raining here. They are as bad as CNN for manically repeating the same damned 3 stories over and over and over . .
This afternoon I took on the Munich Art Gallery,

the Alte Pinakotek (!!??)
There are acres of Van Dyck and Reubens paintings. This could only have been done with a spray gun. Fortunately half the gallery was closed for reno so I was able to quit while still conscious.
Tomorrow afternoon I start the long haul home.

RETURNING to VANCOUVER

BACK HOME in VANCOUVER
The last day in Munich was not the last. Munich's time zone is 9 hours off Vancouver's. The flight from MUC to YVR takes 12 hours through Calgary. Additionally, my Air Transat flight was 9 hours late due to a mechanical problem that trapped the plane on the ground at Amsterdam. So when I arrived home in Vancouver at 5 AM on Saturday morning, I was completely flogged with jetlag. It was a surly crowd that arrived at Vancouver.